A Bradford man believes he is baldly going where no writer has gone before.

Comic Mahmud Khan, 55, of Heaton, Bradford, has written what he reckons is the first book of Asian humour to be published in the UK.

The book, called In Praise of Baldness, is a series of short stories and autobiographical anecdotes as seen through the eyes of a man who says he sees the funny side of everything - even going bald.

Mr Kahn, who works as a translator, said: "I have always been interested in the absurdities of life, I think the photograph on the front of the book shows how I see the world, back to front.

"I'm trying to extract every humorous aspect of my life and putting it down on paper for the Asian Community.

"This is the first book of its kind. There aren't really any funny Asian books available in the UK - but that doesn't mean we don't have a sense of humour.

"With this book I want to show the world how I see the world from a unique perspective and that there is always absurdity in commonplace things."

Mr Kahn says that his humour is influenced by comic classics such as Fawlty Towers, Mr Bean and Laurel and Hardy. But he also thinks that new series like Goodness Gracious Me are helping to popularise the Asian humour.

He said: "Goodness Gracious Me isn't very true to life, but it makes me laugh."

Although this is Mr Khan's first book he already has plans to have it translated from Urdu into English and other Asian languages such as Hindi, Pungabi, Bengali and Gujariti.

"This is my first book but I have a number of other ideas already in mind for more.

Among the subjects that Mr Khan pokes fun at in the book are the Indian film industry, Muslims playing the National Lottery, getting his head stuck in someone else's dhoti loin cloth.

In Praise of Baldness is published by M&R Publications and is now available on the Internet at the www.amazon.com website.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.